John Bowen Synth Design

It seems I talked with the Sound Tower guy some time ago about this. I'll have to check my old emails.

Hi John,

Thanks for the great news

Regarding your asking, I'd preferably like to see on further funded developments the following:

4) User Wavetables
6) More LFO waveshapes and one shot LFOs.
8 ) Looping to the envelopes
10) CS-80 emulation, for filter
12) More mod sources to the Envelope segments
14) Karplus-Strong Osc Type
15) A Resonator Osc Type
16) Some form of granular synthesis
21) Mutable Instruments' implementation, especially the Elements module
23) Roland filter like Jupiter 8

About how much is to be paid, for me it's quite an effort going beyond 200€ as I don't have more than 150€ left per month for anything not covering minimal expenses (In fact buying a Solaris for me would have meant, which I had already planned, saving most of my money for 4 years, regardless of how I came to own one). I'd also like to donate (and I will) to Jimm and Hrast but, still, I have to know how much would the OS 2.0 be, before being able to give any ammount.

Please, if funding goes beyond that intial 200, I'd ask you to provide a way of participating without having to pay all at once and allow divided payments.

Many thanks, again Hrast Jim and John, for all the efforts

Thanks for that, John

Just donated to both.

Cheers

Thanks for the update John,

The version 3 (?) updates proposed look great.

Sample playback seems like it would be lots of work and beyond the scope of this machine. I personally have played around with a Robertsonics Tsunami Sample Player module https://robertsonics.com/tsunami-user-guide/ plugged into the inputs which works quite well. This is a module that can playback a set of 4096 44.1khz 16 bit stereo samples to eight audio outputs. The samples are stored on a microSD card and are not limited in size. A simple MIDI interface can be attached to control the sample playback. I've spent the last three years on a machine that is based around this module. With a small micro attached the module could be easily worked to change samplesets based on patch information via MIDI from the Solaris. Of course this is just sample playback. The modules is $100 or so. Just an idea for those interested in samples.One of it's nice features is glitchless looping.

I have thought about designing a module to work with the Solaris on a more permanent basis but of course this unit is not integrated into the Solaris. Its samplesets would be stored on a separate microSD card along with the patch data - settings for which samples play etc. You could certainly have a full piano with individual samples across the whole keyboard potentially with velocity. It's down to the samples for that to work.

All the other updates look interesting !

I like Ben's approach to a crowdfunded scale of updates. Whether these happen as one crowdfund or several stages over time. Maybe a user voted choice based on a list of suggestions from you might work.

I'll donate some into Jim and Hrastprogrammer's accounts as well.

Hope my two cents are of help.

Cheers,

Steve.

Regarding the spam - my Web host has been working to reduce as much as possible, but still some few posts get through. As soon as I see it I delete it, but I’m not getting those alerts, and only see it when I check the Forum activity.

Times are strange. Right now, due to you all know what, I lost all my income so I am running on idle. But I will contribute when things get better. Right now I would like to chime in on analog feel.

Sorry for my bad English to anyone. I will try to be as precise as I can.

As I read in internet's wisdom, there are few parts in making VCO sound better than digital oscillators. More in poly than in mono, but monos do have some character. Please, correct me, it I am wrong (not about mono synths character, but about what I am about to write below).

From what I talked to Paula, who made best oscillators that I ever heard (there are two, not counting my modular, that are superb: Modal 001/002 and Prologue's VCOs), one very important aspect is slop, that is already covered. Great! Another one might be difference between voices (seen using gated sequencer to make each voice a bit different). I am not convinced that this is so important in poly, when voices are rather far apart when fired from different keys, except maybe when two or more voices are played n-octaves apart.

Third one I raised in another forum and I don't know, if this method is implemented in Solaris, because I didn't hear that, but it might be implemented at very low levels. Anyway: I think about higher harmonics smearing. From what I learned, it gives some organic character to oscillator even when VCO is very stable.

Imagine this: you have oscilloscope, like the ones found in labs. And now you are running stable pitch oscillator with saw wave. Then you are doing heat map for like 500 cycles. And what do you find? The cycle fires at perfect timing, but slope line is bold. From looking at various VCOs I see that best oscillators to my ears have very unstable beginning just after wave jumps (hence saw wave, but this should be true for square wave and we would be looking not at only beginning of cycle, but beginning of every new rapid voltage value), so the line would be bolder at the beginning and finer till the end of cycle. What this does is exactly smearing upper harmonics. You can try to emulate this characteristics with AM modulation and that has been just recently tried and posted at other forum (GS, thread about techniques).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOKz5KfYZZQ

I think that guy from this video just found what I described. The thing is, he is not going into full emulation of the effect that I described. By doing just that, he makes whole slope bolder. I believe, that he would achieve better result, if he modulated beginning of wave with itself, but also modulating attenuation of effect with S&H that resets at every VCO interval.

BTW: I never got answer to this question that I asked few year ago. ;] Is S&H in Solaris uniform or gaussian? I know, John, that you didn't knew answer back then and I am not pushing, since I am probably only person ever wondering about this aspect. The second wave samples white noise while first one is easier to achieve in digital realm. The thing is: this is perfect example of why that knowledge might be useful, as using white noise for this task is necessary and uniform distribution from S&H isn't. :]

Cordially,
Norman

Hi Norman,

I assume you are asking about the S/H waveform that is used in the MM1 oscillator and not the LFO waveshape?

I'm most keen to see the following, in roughly this order:

• Simplify output assignments for the new multimode
• Any bug fixes on your list
• Karplus Strong Oscilator
• Resonator Oscillator
• Granular Oscillator + Effects
• Kernal Synthesis
• Fixed Filter Bank
• Looping Envelopes
• Master LFO
• Oscillator drift (slow modulator)
• Quantizer
• Additional effects would be great (I don't care too much about Reverb)
• User wavetables would be rad
• Random note modulator + voice number modulator
• LFO enhancements (waves, one shot, etc.)

I donated to Jim, and am happy to donate to future DSP development as well.

John Bowen wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2020 3:56 pm

jgale wrote: Tue Sep 08, 2020 3:46 pm ...The only thing I did not see on the list for me is a way to sync LFOs. This would be helpful to emulate mono LFOs like in the OBX, etc. Today the Solaris LFOs are all free running per voice.

John.

I'll add it to the list - thanks for the reminder.

John - I would also like to add to the list mono triggering of other mod sources - envelopes, looping envelopes, etc. to emulate the monophonic envelope on the CS-80 ring modulator, paraphonic synthesizers, etc. It should have an option to re-trigger on a new note or no re-trigger if notes are currently being held.

John

Ok, I’ll see what can be done.

Hi John and a warm hello to all of the SOLARIS users!
I am very impressed by the constant work and the great maintenance on the whole software of SOLARIS.
Its a great and I think also a unique kind of user friendly service within the synthesizer scene. So yes, lets help John and the other guys involved in these processes with a user based donate of 200 USD each. For the further development, to achieve the most flexible and capable synth out there!

To John: It would be helpful to get the paypal account named here as a new post so everyone can see it clearly.
Thanks in advance!

From Germany, many thanks to John, Jim and Hrast so far!

Cheers,
Matt - SOLARIS User #00159

Thanks for the update here John! Sent a donation to Hrastprogrammer. and happy to send a donation to Jim Hewes as well for their great contributions.

I am not sure how difficult MPE support would be to add, but that would also be a very interesting item for Solaris. Also the feature request list has grown quite huge, many very interesting looking items from that list. For now though the PMod & CZ Osc & multimode are huge updates!

MPE could probably be implemented. But as you know the Solaris is designed in a way that each DSP handles two voices and those two cannot be manipulated separately (except for one or two aspects like poly aftertouch). So at most only the first five voices would be independently controllable. The next five would share the channels with the first five.

Accidentally found this posting. Regardless wether the poll is still open, thanks for it. Here's my two cents:

1) The Master FX work.

=> A reverb would be fine, as long as quality and price was at a good ratio.

2) A couple of bugs in the code.

=> Much appreciated. "Don't manage bugs, fix them"

3) Multisample Oscillator Type.
4) User Wavetables

=> I'm not sure wether those currently are the most valuable features for most users (certainly not for me).

5) Add a Random Note to the Mod Source list.

=> IMO this would be great, especially for a digital machine, to bring more life to the sound.

6) More LFO waveshapes, some stepped and asymmetric forms. Also add a slew control to the LFO output. Possible One-Shot mode as well.

=> Sample and Glide would be great. The Korg Z1 provides it as "Random 2", and I built it on a User Osillator for the Korg prologue and minilogue xd. IMO it's one of the most underrated LFO shapes. Regardless of that, the lag processor of the Solaris can do it. It's just not that straightforward. The symmetry parameter of the Microwave I also served me well.

8 ) Add looping to the envelopes.

=> Alternatively, add an additional 8 step envelope, including looping, as the Microwave I provides. Described on page 4-15 of the programming manual:
https://waldorfmusic.com/phocadownload/ ... al_Eng.pdf

I remember I had a lot of fun using it, e.g. as a pitch modulator.

9) Finer divisions of parameter range for LFO rates and Mod amounts. Some people have complained they need finer resolution on frequency control. (This may be something for Jim, though).

=> Much appreciated.

14) A separate Karplus-Strong Osc Type.

=> Oh yeah. Do the plucked strings. IMHO that would be much more interesting than samples or user wavetables.

15) A Resonator Osc Type (something to have both harmonic and inharmonic overtones)

=> Similar to what the Z1 provides (noise being fed through a series of band pass filters)? That would be an addition similarly exiting as the Karplus-Oscillator, allowing for sounds seldom to find.

19) Pitch Bend wheel as a Mod Source

=> Seldom, but I once missed it, e.g. to control filter cutoff for pitch tuned filter sounds.

20) Microtuning/alternate scales

=> Would be great for leads.

22) "Please don't spend any time on reverbs. We all have reverbs. Better to spend time on inline effects like waveshapers or other effects like Virus style distortion/saturation flavors"

=> +1 for the saturation flavors. Those brought the Virus a couple of really exiting "sweet spots".


John is the product manager of the Solaris and has to decide about the prioritation. I hope the poll gives some hint for that. In the worst case, it leads to equally distributed votes .

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